WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19

I forgot about Dr. Kareem until I almost tripped her.

Walking down the hall, my eyes on my shoes,

and suddenly there was another pair

of shoes in my field of vision,

and they were stumbling,

and my arm shot out

and steadied the person

they belonged to, and when

I looked up, it was Dr. Kareem

who had also been looking down,

reading a yellow-paged notebook

full of red-inked chicken scratch.

We stared at each other, surprised

to find someone’s universe

overlapping with our own,

and then she smiled, a faint

smile of something like

recognition.

Thank you, she said. Alicia, I think?

How do you know my name?

I’m learning lots of people’s names, she said.

Some people call me Red, I said.

(And silently: among other things)

And she said, What do you

call you?

And I said, Alicia, I guess.

And she said, Then I will call you

Alicia.